Bookshelf Preview

Downloading and installing Bookshelf on your Windows PC

Download Bookshelf for Windows: Bookshelf is an Education App, developed by VitalSource Technologies, Inc.. The Education App was officially released 2010-09-15. Today, it has gone through many interations by the developers - VitalSource Technologies, Inc., with the latest current version being 4.4 which was officially released on 2018-08-30. As a testament to the app's popularity or lack thereof, it has gathered a total of 12,237 Reviews on the App Store alone, with an average user rating of 4 out of a possible 5.

Using Bookshelf on your Windows computer is actually very easy but if you are new to this process, you will definitely need to pay attention to the steps listed below. This is because you will need to download and install a Desktop App emulator for your computer. We will help you download and install Bookshelf on your computer in 4 simple steps below:

1: Download an Andriod Software emulator for Windows

The importance of the emulator is that it emulates or immitates an android environment on your computer, making it super easy to install and run android apps from the comfort of your PC without buying a phone that runs android. Who says you cannot enjoy both worlds? To begin, you can download such an emulator app made by too top dogs in the space.
A. Nox App . OR
B. Bluestacks App .
Personally, I recommend the "B" option as Bluestacks is very popular so if you run into any trobles using it, you can find good solutions on Google or Bing (lol).

2: Now Install the Software Emulator on your Windows PC

If you successfully downloaded the Bluestacks.exe or Nox.exe, go to your Downloads folder on your computer or anywhere you ususally store downloaded files.
Once you have find it, click it to install the application. It should start the installation process on your PC.
Click Next to accept the EULA License agreement.
Follow the on screen directives in order to install the application.
If you do the above correctly, the Software will be successfully installed.

3: How to Use Bookshelf for Windows PC - Windows 7/8 / 8.1 / 10

Now, open the Emulator application you have installed and locate the search bar. Now type Bookshelf in the search bar and hit Search. You will easily see the app. Click on Bookshelf application icon. A window of Bookshelf will open and it will display the app in your Emulator Software. Hit the Install button and your application will start downloading. Now we are all done.
Next, you will see the "All Apps" icon.
Click on it and it will take you to a page containing all your installed applications.
You should see the Bookshelf icon. Click on it and start using the application.

Hope it was not too difficult? If you have any further inquiries, contact me through the "Contact" link at the bottom of this page so I could help You. Have a nice day!

About Bookshelf

Developer Description

Use Bookshelf to download and access VitalSource textbooks on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. Read your books online or offline and create notes and highlights to help you study.
Bookshelf Features:
• Download books to your iOS device for easy online or offline reading.
• Simple, user-friendly navigation and a clean reading experience.
• Search inside your book for a term or phrase.
• Select text to create notes or highlights from your mobile device.
• Review flashcards to quiz yourself on key concepts.
• Tap to open figures, view captions, and pinch to zoom.
• Use text-to-speech to listen to your textbooks read aloud.
• Sync your bookmarks, current reading position, and all of your notes and highlights between your iOS device, desktop, and online Bookshelf apps.
Requirements:
• VitalSource Bookshelf account
• Access to one or more VitalSource textbooks.
• iOS 10+

App Reviews

Not a good app, but it has potential with changes

2

By JJMCST

This is not a functional app, especially for educational purposes. First of all, many of the services provided by the desktop app are not available through the mobile version. It is somewhat understandable for some of the more complex features offered in other apps, such as Microsoft Office, but in a reading app I feel that there is no excuse. For one thing, in the desktop version it will use a primitive text-to-speech (TTS) program to enable you to listen while working on something else. This would be much better applied to a mobile version, or does that make too much sense?
There are other issues that prevent the mobile version from being a success, but all of them, including the TTS should be an easy fix with an update. Overall, a very frustrating app that could be great with just a little tweaking.

Crashes too much

3

By Medic68

I’m in nursing school for my BSN and I have to do a lot of reading. Majority of my books are on Elsevier or PrepU which they use bookshelf for the ebook. I listen to the audio since majority is difficult for me. The lady is monotone and can easily put you to sleep. On my Mac it’s a guy voice which is also monotone. The problem with the iPhone app are the fact that listening to the audio, when I highlight, it freezes and takes a long time to refresh. Highlights on the app is one color which makes it difficult to separate topics. Other times the app doesn’t even load my book and crashes. The main issue is the crashing because it interferes greatly with my reading or listening.

DYSFUNCTIONAL APP. -STILL AFTER A YEAR!!!

1

By E.j.Teegarden

Meaning: doesn’t function STILL!!!
After refusing to access MY TEXTBOOK, that I paid additional money for - JUST for the digital version, because of ALLLLL the various issues with this app (both online and downloadable), I came back AFTER A YEAR-new classes-new semesters-JUST TO EXPERIENCE THE EXACT SAME ISSUES.
*** “VITALSOURCE” - ARE YOU GUYS KIDDING ME!?!***
-STILL Sluggish.
-STILL won’t highlight properly.
-STILL exports micro small degraded export...
I normally just bite my tongue if I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING GOOD TO SAY, but AFTER A WHOLE YEAR- REALLY!?!
We (Students) pay hundreds of dollars for these digital versions-(because we have no other choice) - and then find out that THEY STILL DON’T (AFTER A YEAR) FUNCTION!!!
I couldn’t believe it, I tried giving you the benefit of doubt. So, after working all night at the hospital I waited until I got home to see maybe if it was the hospitals internet-as if. But NO, ITS JUST THE SAME EXACT ISSUES THAT WERE THERE A YEAR AGO. I feel ripped off, but I see that I’m not the only one now as many others here have expressed THE EXACT SAME ISSUES. That, and having more than adequate time to address these issues, is why I feel compelled to not bite my tongue and let others know...
-I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS APPLICATION.

Very Basic

2

By Laz1518

This app is super basic. The highlighting feature is frustrating! Anytime i want to highlight a text next to a picture or on a narrow part of the page the it selects a bunch of other text i don’t want to highlight. The biggest frustration for me is not being able to write on the page. You can write notes but it’s not the same as being able to write anywhere on the page with my Apple Pencil and being able to see it at a glance. Other apps such as onedrive that was not design as a reading app has more functionality than bookshelf. Unfortunately i could not get this particular book as a PDF otherwise i would have used Onedrive instead. This app still has a long way to go.

Great app！Some important functions needed

4

By Dr. FL

Overall, I love this app! It’s very convenient, you can read book everywhere EVEN without internet. It will be even better for both educators and students if 1) it allows users to create customized folders to better organize the books 2) make it more compatible with notes taking and highlighting. For example, it will be fantastic if users can mark and make notes on the book using Apple Pencil or other tools. I am a colleague educator and will use it more if these functions are available! Thank you very much for developing this wonderful educational app! :)

Good app just need some tweaking

4

By Glad-10!

I am using this app for going back to school and listening to my books. It works really well I am very happy with it, but after this last update it does not save in your settings. For example, I turned up the speed of the reader but whenever I stop using the app and then go back into it it reset. The only other thing is while driving to work my screen is off and then when I get to work I turn the screen back on so that I can book market any can’t find what page it was reading on. Other than those two things it’s an awesome app!

Speak-n-spell from the 80s

1

By Sadcheese3

This is the worst app I have ever had the misfortune to be forced to use. I’m in grad school in 2018 at a high priced university and this is the best we can do? Scrolling is a nightmare. No page numbers to reference. Loading is ridiculously slow. There is nothing intuitive about navigation whatsoever. Text-to-speech....you should be embarrassed. Siri can read my text messages at an intelligible level, but reading a textbook is indistinguishable from the TI Speak-n-spell from 1978!!! Not a typo. It sounds like 40-year-old technology in an age where you can carry around terabytes of information in your pocket. I can’t believe this was duct taped into the app and heralded as a feature. How the reviews of this thing are so high is beyond me. Garbage. Absolute garbage.

Why does Siri read so many “BLACK SMALL SQUARE”??

1

By Murch714

My book reads off a lot of different bulleted items and it says “black small square” most the time when it encounters these bullet points... other times it doesn’t mention the bullet points which is kind of inconvenient too because then it becomes confusing to discern when one bullet starts and one ends –unless you’re looking at the book–which I’m shouldn’t need to do because I’m using the read aloud feature. Other times the program freezes on these “black small square” lists and I need to reopen the program and skip to the next normal paragraph. I DID VERY POORLY IN CLASS YESTERDAY WHEN WE PLAYED JEOPARDY BECAUSE OF THIS :(. Please fix. My book is “nursing today trends and transitions” 9th edition by zerwech

Don’t use this app unless you’re forced to

1

By pwilliamsphd

First, it disables the auto shut down on iPads and iPhones and drains the battery. It is ONLY black and white - no night reading options to change to grey or black backgrounds with white lettering. WORST - I downloaded a book. It shows as having 23 pages! Why? Because each chapter is a page! Try keeping track of where you are reading when one page really equals 15 to 30 pages. If you vary even a little from vertical when scrolling down it flips you to the next chapter/page. When you go back - guess what- you’re at the beginning of the chapter and have to find where you were.

Great, only one pet peeve

4

By Redchicka89

The app is great for reading off-line and it syncs accurately across devices. My only pet peeve is that it has no option to select a word and get a direct reference to the apple “look up” option for obscure words. Also, whenever I copy and paste a word into google to look up the meaning, I get a long reference with the word on the search box. If they are that concerned about plagiarism they need to make it more convenient to look up terms that are not in the glossary.